For athletics this year we finally get to do high jump which is so awesome. I really enjoy high jump although I can only do the scissor kick jump yet. I hope I do well at athletics on the day. I might even try make a montage video of me at athletics day.
Today for i Drive I did some painting on our groups impact mural with Miles and Cooper. We are painting a mural about Moana which means the sea in Maori. We had already painted the bottom of the sea a dark blue so we blended the paint into lighter and lighter shades of blue until we reached the spot where the water meets the sky. We did not do any more painting after that.
The Learning Power I used was Curiosity because I kept asking questions about painting and blending techniques.
The skill of play I used was problem solving because I found a solution to every problem we came across.
Doing something fun, I know this is a plus because doing something fun always makes me and other people happy.
No negatives.
i Drive has had a huge influence on my creativity. I know this because my art became super creative after I did i Drive for ages.
Getting to choose what we do and when. This is a plus because it lets you choose to do something you like rather than something you don’t like getting chosen for you.
I learnt something new every time. I know this because I have grown smarter after each i Drive session.
Getting to do something I really enjoy. This is a plus because it makes me want to do i Drive and besides without enjoyment in something why would you do it.
Every time I publish a post on my blog about i Drive my page views go up dramatically.
In the 19th century, New Zealand workers fought for the right to have an eight hour working day but they failed.
Then in 1840 carpenter Samuel Parnell fought for the right in Wellington and won the right.
When was Labour Day first celebrated?
Labour Day was first celebrated as a public holiday on October 28, 1890 when thousands of workers paraded in the main city centres. Everyone got a day off work to attend to the celebrations. But the first official Labour Day was on the second Wednesday of October in 1900.
What happens on Labour Day?
Everyone gets a day of work which means most shops are closed, and all the schools are deserted. Everyone can sit back and have a great time. Besides everyone needs a break from work someday don't they?
Today for IDrive Noah, Daniel, Cooper and I made a play for drama. In the play Cooper and Noah were, The Secret Agents, Daniel was, The Robber and I was, The Crazy Leopard Road Runner. The funniest part of the play was when Cooper fired his shimmies shake guns at me by shaking his hips.
The Learning Power I used was Connecting because I made sense of other people's ideas and stretched myself as a learner to adapt to changes in the storyline.
The Skill of Play I used was fun because I worked with my group to have a fun time.
That was our best play yet, here is a picture of me with the people I made our play with.
Two weeks and 4 days ago the holidays started and I guess it's my job to tell you all about it. Term 3 ended with our schools pet day and then it was, ''Bring on the weekend!''.
The first major event was missing out on the Paeroa to Thames Run because I pulled my right hamstring playing rugby, a sport which I don't usually play and you can see why.
The second event worth writing about was when Cooper came over to play on the first Tuesday of the holidays. For a majority of the time we just played tag and chatted and vice versa. Then Cooper suggested we should make a music video since we didn't finish our music video at school. I was like ''um okay'' so we started making costumes but eventually we lost hope altogether for the music video because we realised we would need a proper film camera and on top of that, we couldn't decide which song to base it on.
Then my Dad asked us if we wanted to go eeling. We replied with ''reading you loud and clear, yes we do want to go eeling, over and out''. So Cooper and I went down to the butchers and asked for some scrap meat. They gave us a whole bag of some, jackpot. Cooper and I walked back home and we fed some of the meat to our hens. Then we loaded the hinaki into the boot and we were off. We checked two streams before we found a good one. Then we had to find a spot with deep water to conceal the hinaki encase someone sees it and tries to steal it, the spot also had to have a strong bank to thrust the stick into the ground which our hinaki was tied to so the ground wouldn't give way and our hinaki wouldn't drift off downstream. While my Dad did all of that stuff Cooper and I played racing boats in the strong current. '' Oh no'', ''the Titanic has run aground'' we shouted. On the way back home Cooper had an idea to make a movie at my house. I told my Dad about his idea and then next thing we know he's pulled up at the college getting us a camera. When we got back home we just rested. Then Cooper's Mum asked Cooper if he wanted to stay the night at our house and he said ''yes'', yes!.
Day two, we woke up at the crack of dawn had some breakfast watched an episode of Kevin McLeod's escape to the wild.Then we went to check the hinaki. It was bitterly cold outside but that did not put off our excitement. When we check the hinaki there was an eel in there, celebrate good times come on, okay enough of that. When we got home we cleaned the grill and made a super hot fire. Then we filleted the eel, all right you got me we gutted the eel and chucked the chunks of meat onto the grill. They sizzled like sausages in a pan but one didn't pop and the other didn't go bang. Here is a picture.
Once the eel was finished cooking, we ate it.
Then it was time to film. We filmed a 54 second video about a villain (me) who could control gravity vs an average guy (Cooper). After filming we had to edit. We added music, voice overs and special effects. The editing took longer than filming the movie itself. We used a technique where you change the camera angle lots to keep the movie flowing. Our finished movie is at the bottom of the post.
Then guess what happened, Cooper was allowed to stay another night at my house. Nothing much happened that day after we made the movie. The next day we made two more movies which weren't as good as our first one. Then Cooper went home.
Then on the second Sunday of the holidays we went to Hamilton with my Mum, Dad, Brother, and Sister to stay a night at our old neighbour's new house in Hamilton. First we went to the base to spend some of our money and guess what I bought, one of the Lego sets from the new Star Wars movie The Force Awakens, I got the First Order Troop Transporter here is what it looks like.
At three O'clock we arrived at her house and just relaxed for the day. The next day I woke up and watched the Wallabies beat England. I was the only one who said that Australia would win.
Then we went to my cousins house in Ngaruawahia. When we arrived our parents sped off to Raglan for two nights. Our cousins have a very cute grey cat called Poppy, she is still a kitten. Then our other cousins arrived and I played rugby with my cousin Carlos.
Then we went to Carlos's house in Horotiu and played soccer there. Then we went to bed. The next day Carlos, my two other cousins, my Sister and I weeded the garden and got ten dollars each. Then we put all our money together so it totalled to about fifty dollars. We bought an apple pie, a chocolate moose, ice cream and Lemon, Lime and Bitters from Countdown. We ate all of it for dessert while watching Pixels.
The next day we went home to Ngatea with two of our cousins. When we got home I built my Lego set straight away. It looked awesome when it was finished. Then it was bed time.
The next day Carlos and I went to a soccer camp run buy Scott Parsonage who works for Waibop Football. My team came second overall at the camp. The next day our cousins went home and that was the end of the holidays.
Last Friday I took part in the Learning In The Making Conference 2015. Learning In The Making Conference is when students can run or attend fun workshops all day, everyone loves the Learning In The Making Conference. The first workshop was one everyone in Whetu and Marama had to go to. We had a man talk to us about cyber safety. He told us about The Great Firewall Of China and how it blocks people from the outside world. This reminds me about the Phoenix Files how everyone is cut off from the outside world. I would rate this workshop second.
The next workshop was The Technology Challenge which was my personal favourite. For The Technology Challenge we had to make the tallest structure we could with 20 dried sticks of pasta 1 metre of string and 1 metre of sticky tape and get this the world record for this is held by a group of kindergarten kids. My team won because we built our tower on a table and it leaned down so we won with -15 cm as our hight. I would rate this workshop first.
The following workshop Make a Model ran by Mrs Taaffe was where we had to make a model. My group made a Hawaiian skirt and headdress. The other groups both made dresses. This workshop I would rate fourth.
The next workshop I didn't really like it was The Maths Challenge. We started off with a timetable challenge then one on word problems then finally algorithms. I would rate this workshop fifth.
Finally I went to The Science workshop run by Mrs Barker. In this workshop we had to figure out how to make an electro magnet with a metre of copper wire a D battery and a nail. The magnet had to be strong enough to pick up a paper clip.
I had such a fun day last Friday and I'm sure everyone else did to.
Diana was born in Park House in 1961. Diana's family lived very easily, she would just eat, chat and joke all day. Her brother and sisters were full of fun and so was she. Diana loved the beach. When she was seven her parents divorced and her father won custody of the children. For the rest of her childhood Diana was moved between her parents houses.
The first job she got was a kindergarten teacher. Then she got married to Prince Charles Of Wales in 1981. Next they had two sons William and Harry. Then Diana became very famous because she worked for charity's and helped people with leprosy. She earned the name The Queen of Hearts because people loved her so much. In her adulthood she was something of a rebel seen touching someone with AIDS made a huge impact on peoples thought about people infected with this disease. Diana died in a car crash in France when her car went through a tunnel and crashed into a wall while trying to escape the media.
Princess Diana of Wales was definitely a Queen of hearts.
Today for Idrive I did drama with Leon, Noah and Cooper. We decided that me and Cooper could be the Thompson twins from Tintin and Noah could be a little kid. Then Leon became the Hired Assassin. The play starts of with Noah spying on Cooper and Leon. He found out that those two wanted to murder him. Then Cooper and me as the Thompson twins came to help Noah. Then Leon shot me Cooper and Noah. Noah died but me and Cooper survived. Then Noah as Tintin came and helped us up. Next we traced Leon to his hideout, we caught him handcuffed him and asked who is your master. Then Leon said ''My mother is..'', Cooper had shot him. ''Why did you do that'' I asked. Then Cooper revealed he was Boba Fat in disguise. He tried to shoot me but Noah blocked it with his chest. Then I shot Cooper, Noah I shot to put him out of his misery and myself to do the same.
The skill of play I think I used this week was Endurance because we stuck to doing our play when things got hard. I think I will enjoy presenting our play to The Whetu Team.
The learning power I used the most was resilience because we knew it was okay to make mistakes so we didn't make a real big fuss about it and we just carried on.
Here is a picture of the Thompson Twins if you want to know what they look like.
The reason water looks blue is because water absorbs the colours orange, yellow and red in sunlight more than blue so the water turns out to look blue because blue is the least absorbent.
The reason why water in a glass looks clear is because there aren't enough water molecules in the class to absorb the colours in beams of light.
Huff puff huff puff, yep it's that time of the year again, cross country. First we had to train, Rocky style. We had to run around the block which was around two kilometres long. First we ran down Paul's Drive from the back of the school. At the end of Paul's Drive we turn onto Mahana Road. Then we turn onto Pipiroa Road then the main street and finally we turn back onto Paul's Drive again. My personal best time was 11.18. Then came the real thing, out at The South Pole, just joking South farms I came 5th in my 9 year old boys race. I discovered a surprising new technique, it was to run on the thicker mud when I was going uphill to get allot better grip. Since I came 5th in my race I made it into the inter school cross country which the whole Hauraki Plains competes in. In my race I came 10th. The muddiest part was just over the concrete bridge. This course was definitely harder then the South Farms course. Since I came 10th I did not get into Thames Valley because the cut off was 6th place, and man I got muddy. Here is our training route.
Big Game is an action packed novel about a boy who sets out with a day and night to find an animal in the wilderness to bring back to the Place of the skulls. When he is in the forest terrorists shoot down air force the presidents plane. Young Oskari has to help the president escape to civilization from the terrorists. I would rate this book for 10 to 12 year old's since it has a few swear words in it.
This week for Idrive I worked on a music video with Cooper, Leon, Dilyn and Daniel. The song we were doing was hall of fame. First we filmed Cooper and I lip syncing. Then we filmed Cooper doing Taekwondo afterwards we filmed Dilyn hoopla hooping and Cooper Congratulating him. Daniel helped with brain storming. It was very fun making our music video.
A fault line is a large crack in between two tectonic plates. In an earthquake being on a fault line can be rather dangerous because a huge crack could open up underneath you. Fault lines are also areas often affected by earthquakes.
One of the largest fault lines in the world is the San Andrea's fault line which runs roughly 1300 km through California America. The coordinates of America are 48.1667° N, 100.1667° W. The more the tectonic plates move and collied the more fault lines are created. Here is a picture of a fault line for you.
Today for my IDrive I did music with Noah, Cooper, Daniel and myself, he he. At first we were going to do our beat to the song another one bites by Freddie Mercury but we decided that we should change the song because that wouldn't be our own music. The skills of play I used this time were enthusiasm and cooperation, because I was being enthusiastic about ideas and I was cooperative with my group by listening to everyone's ideas. I really liked Idrive this week.
Today for IDrive I did carpentry and blocks. The skills of play you can use in Idrive are Collaboration
Fun, Questioning, Cooperation,Confidence, Enthusiasm and a few more. One of the skills of play is Problem solving. I think I problem solved when I saw that our town needed protection so I built a wall around it. Here is a picturemy finished product. I'm am on the right.
Last term we did some lino printing artwork. I was in Mrs's B's group so I had to do a city scape typed lino print. First we googled images of houses and traced them onto newsprint. Next we had to copy the drawing on our news print onto an a3 piece of paper. Then we had to trace over the lines with a dark pencil. Then we put the lino underneath the a3 and went over it with a pencil. Next we had to carve out the places we were leaving white. Then we chose our first colour. My one was green, next I had to carve out everything I wanted to stay green and so on. I liked doing this art. Here is my finished pieces.
Warning this blog post will be totally boring. Day one of holidays, I stayed at home. Day two of the holidays, I stayed at home. Day three off the holidays I stayed at home. Day 6, I went to Auckland to go too my two year old cousins birthday. His name is Leo, There house has big Chinese letters on the front it looks something like this 妈妈. There was allot of food there and my cousin kept hitting balloons in the air with a stick. The next week I went too Hamilton to see my baby cousin. It is a girl also our other cousins have a kitten. It will play with almost anything.
My Minus is up first like a big bold red minus like seriously. But it's good to get out your minus's out first. My minus for this term was probably being late for class quite a few times just. In our syndicate it is very strict. We have to go to oh dear and then write a late letter. But really its not that bad. My plus for this term is that I listened to music allot. I really like listening to music because it clears my head of other thoughts. Unfortunately it seems to quiet for me when I stop playing music. I wonder why, maybe because I play it to loudly?
This week we had to name what things were and give a description of them by looking at pictures.
I created a presentation for all of the images here it is.
On June 10th 1886 something explosive, infernal and deadly blew its top just out of Rotorua it was Mount Tarawera, it was the eruption that blew a city apart. The eruption lasted six hours. Several villages were destroyed along with the most famous silica hot springs in the world the Pink and White Terraces. Which only have just been found today. 120 people died and nearly all were Maori. Eleven days before the eruption tourists on a guided tour boat tourists spotted a phantom war canoe on lake Tarawera. Tribal elders believed it was a waka wairua (spirit canoe)-an omen of doom. In the early hours of June 10th people woke up to earthquakes, lightning, fountains of molten rock and ash and smoke shooting into the sky as high as 10 km's. People as far away as Blenhiem heard the eruption. Many thought it was a attacks from a Russian warship that had recently visited Wellington. This eruption would sure shake New Zealand for years to come. 7
I was looking for inspiring quotes online then I found this one --------->
I chose this quote because people may look ugly on the outside but they may be better than you on the inside. Looks do not really matter neither does talent, only how you treat people and how you act makes you who you are. Have you ever heard people say don't judge a book by its cover or from the book wonder ''Don't judge a boy by his face''. This means if someone may look ugly, don't ditch them hang around, see what they really are like inside.
On Friday when went to the Lewis Road factory for our made awards documentary. First we went to the reception, we met up with a man named Mr Van Hovels. We went inside the meeting room. Then he answered some of our questions. Plus he gave us a tour of the factory. First he showed us the milking shed then the big tanks that held milk next to it. Then he explained that the milk would be pumped straight to the factory underground. Next he showed us the room with a convener belt of crates were all the milk was stored.Next he showed were they were making butter. There was a monitor screen which showed the stages of the products live in making. Finally he showed us the pasteurising room it had water and milk running on the ground.
My favourite job in the whetu syndicate is taking care of our budgies. They are quite noisy but they are so peaceful. We have made the area around their cage jungle like, to remind them of there home. There names are Chips and Tiny Shiny. Once Chips got out of the cage but CC's (Callum) shut the door quick enough. Then Mrs B caught him and put him back in his cage. Here is pictures of what they look like.
At the moment in school time I am learning how to speak Portuguese. I decided to do this because most of the country's in south america speak this language. Portuguese is not that hard to learn.Since most of their words are pronounced slightly different to our words. This is not school work though.I have made a Google document of translations.
''Cushy enough'', when the soldiers who fought in the trenches were asked, ''How comfy is it'', this was always the answer. A life in the trenches was miserable, number one, the dirtiness. There was little clean water so troops rarely took a bath. Also the trenches were filled with mud. Plus constant rain put of the troops. Many of them caught illness's like influenza, frostbite and hypothermia.Also there were rats,knits and fleas. In fact more troops died from these then battle. Amazingly many died from mud falls A.K.A buried alive. Plus the constant loud noises put the troops of. One of the main challenges was to maintain the damaged bits of barbed wire.Food and clothes were scarce as well, so some starved. People joked and said the troops only had one pair of pyjamas each.A true delight to the troops were red cross parcels and cards or letters from family. Many also died of bullet wounds. Sometimes troops would send postcards back home, with men merrily feasting. this was never true. The soldiers had very high expectation discipline rules. If you fell asleep on night watch, purposely got captured, attempted mutiny or wrote diary entry's against the war leaders you would get thrown into prison, get shot or get filed punishment number one A.K.A being strapped to a post three days straight. The war lasted for four years three months and fourteen days. 37 million died 20 million were injured.Least we forget the brave men who fought to defend our neighbours.
From Monday to Wednesday the Whetu syndicate and I went to Totara Springs camp. This is going to be a long post so I will start with the cabins.They were very long with low ceilings.We had enough space for twelve people, but we only had five people. We all had a good two nights sleep. Next the food, we had lots and lots of food for Breakfast,Lunch and Dinner.The food was yum we had coco pops,muesli,yoghurt,pancakes and cream.Chicken wraps plus macaroni and cheese. Pork mince pie,apple pie,sausages and gravy and peas.Jelly and chocolate cake.Next the activities, they were very fun they included,jumping off a bridge. Rock climbing hydro-sliding and go karting. My favourite was probably crate climb where you stack crates underneath you. It was a really fun experience for me because I over came my fear of the crate climb.It was the most awesome camp ever.
For maths every group has to finish a certain number of maths tasks per week. At the moment we are learning to solve division problems using algorithms. Such as 463 divider by 7=? Some of the higher groups do personal books with questions as hard as 93.4+24.8=168.2. These tasks have to be completed by the end of the week as well as our reading ones, or we go to oh dear.Where you have to finish your work instead of celebrating.
Every week my reading group and I work hard to complete a different reading task weekly. The tasks are investigator, summariser, discussion director, passage picker, travel tracer and illustrator. These tasks help strengthen your knowledge of words and comprehension. Also we have a cloze once a week, where we fill in the blanks in the squares and on the other side we do a crossword. Finally towards the end of the week we write a post on our blogs. The criteria is to have an interesting mid length post that hooks the reader in.
